Third Quarter 2020 Reading is a Joy

[john]

Is that what happens?  Sounds like somebody was reading her own fanfic.

edit - oh yeah, remembered it wasn’t actually Rowling that wrote it, it was one of Britain’s most successful screenwriters, which somehow makes the use of fanfic tropes even worse. I believe they also crack out the time turners at one point. I have heard it works a lot better as a live performance than a script though.

[Durckad]

On 7/28/2020 at 9:31 AM, Poobah said:

I'd be interested in your thoughts on Axiom's End since I was thinking of picking it up.

I actually ended up really enjoying it. I think the beginning is a little rough, but once the actual story gets going, it gets much better. It's also a very quick read so even if you don't dig it, it won't last long. I mean, I'm the furthest from a "fast reader," but I finished it in about a week, so people who actually read quickly would likely finish it in no time. 

If I had some negatives, it'd be that the writing isn't flashy, but merely... functional. It gets the job done and doesn't really aim higher than that. The main character is also... she's fine. I feel like she's perpetually surrounded by much more compelling characters and it feels like she's "just along for the ride" for much of the story.

So, I enjoyed it. It's a good, quick read and a pretty good debut novel. I'm not sure I'll ever come back and reread this, but I'll most likely read the sequels when they come out. 3/5

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm motivated to read fiction again post worldcon. I have only read 9 fiction books this year before it but I have already finished 3 this week.

I read The Book of Koli in one go yesterday. Maybe not quite as good as The Girl with All the Gifts but still an interesting read in a creative setting. I pre ordered the sequel. 

 

I got just one little nitpick. You have to accept the premise that stuff from companies like Sony would last hundreds of years which is a bit of a stretch. The tech lasts forever trope has been ruined by modern technology not lastig very long at all. Also a device that is only a music player is a very niche product even nowadays. Some kind of tablet or smartphone would have made more sense. 

[mushroomshirt]

I recently read Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing from Amazon First.  It was one of the July reads so I don't think you can get it for free on Prime anymore, but it's available on Kindle unlimited.  I really enjoyed it. 

It's about a young US Senator who is about to run for president and all the scrutiny that brings.  Some of the skeletons in her closet come out and the book is about how she deals with this.  Cleo herself is a flawed but very likable character.  Ironically everyone around her (except for maybe her best friend from high school) is more or less either a saint or a villain.

[RedEyedGhost]

19 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I read The Book of Koli in one go yesterday. Maybe not quite as good as The Girl with All the Gifts but still an interesting read in a creative setting. I pre ordered the sequel. 

My favorite of his books under the MR name is Fellside (love the Felix Castor series under Mike).  Will probably read Someone Like Me as part of my October horror reading this year, and will save The Book of Koli until the trilogy is complete.

 

[Gigei]

Just started Ted Chiang's short story collection "Stories of Your Life and Others." I've been a fan ever since I read his short story "Understand" which won a Hugo for Best Novellette.

I was blown away by this book! Most amazing read in 2020! I had to stop right in the middle of it since I need more time to process the stuff I've already read. 

[ljkeane]

I finished Kate Elliott's Unconquerable Sun. I was a bit distracted at first trying to work out which characters correspond with which historical figures but overall it's good space opera fun. One of the things Elliott's particularly good at is coming up with various interesting cultures and then seeing how they interact and there's definitely more of that in this book.

Next up I'm going to read Tamsyn Muir's Harrow the Ninth. I was going to put it off a bit so as not to go from space opera straight into necromancer space opera but, bollocks to it, I'm quite looking forward to this one.

[Gigei]

2 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I finished Kate Elliott's Unconquerable Sun.

I thought at first this was an Exalted book about Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, god of the sun and patron of the Solar Exalted. 

[ljkeane]

2 minutes ago, Gigei said:

I thought at first this was an Exalted book about Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, god of the sun and patron of the Solar Exalted. 

Heh, no, it's Alexander the Great in space.

[Wilbur]

I finished The Red Knight, the first book in Christian Cameron's Traitor Son cycle, this morning.  I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as I liked his works in The Long War series.  This is probably a matter of individual taste, as I have a strong appetite for classical Greek history, but I am wary of Arthurian re-tellings.

Upon reflection, he does a terrific job of setting up an antagonist that the reader will really relish hating, and the Sir Lancelot vibes are strong in this character.  The world-building is slow, and because of the similarities to the Arthurian romance, I was constantly drawn out of the story itself and flinching away from what I was afraid would be a pastiche of modern fantasy and high chivalric tales.  But in the end, the world is far enough away to settle my raised hackles.

Again this may be a personal preference, but his work in The Long War is so outstanding in setting up a real and realistic set of characters and conflicts in the Aegean that I was disappointed in The Red Knight as a person and the other POV characters in this book.  Had I read The Red Knight first, I would likely have been a lot more satisfied and entertained by the story itself, not expecting it to be right off the top shelf.

Summary:  Good book, fine read, but not as much to my taste as some of his other work.

[Caligula_K3]

3 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I finished Kate Elliott's Unconquerable Sun. I was a bit distracted at first trying to work out which characters correspond with which historical figures but overall it's good space opera fun. One of the things Elliott's particularly good at is coming up with various interesting cultures and then seeing how they interact and there's definitely more of that in this book.

 

I love the concept behind this book, but my one worry about it (after reading a couple reviews) is that it's going to be all military/action scenes, all the time. I know it's based on Alexander, so that's not too surprising, but would you say that the focus of the book is on action, or on the cultural interaction stuff, which is more my thing?

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Gigei said:

Just started Ted Chiang's short story collection "Stories of Your Life and Others." I've been a fan ever since I read his short story "Understand" which won a Hugo for Best Novellette.

I was blown away by this book! Most amazing read in 2020! I had to stop right in the middle of it since I need more time to process the stuff I've already read. 

I think he is one of the best current writers of SF/fantasy short stories.

I read his other collection, Exhalation, recently and it also had some very good stories.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I love the concept behind this book, but my one worry about it (after reading a couple reviews) is that it's going to be all military/action scenes, all the time. I know it's based on Alexander, so that's not too surprising, but would you say that the focus of the book is on action, or on the cultural interaction stuff, which is more my thing?

There is a fair bit of action but you can't really go wrong with Kate Elliott if what you like is cultural interaction. Having said that there isn't a huge amount in this book because it corresponds with the period of political maneuvering in Phillip's court prior to his death. We see a bit of the Achaemenid stand ins but it's really setting the scene for future books.

[Gigei]

10 hours ago, williamjm said:

I think he is one of the best current writers of SF/fantasy short stories.

I read his other collection, Exhalation, recently and it also had some very good stories.

He's amazing. I'll definitely read his other short story collection.

[Caligula_K3]

I loved Exhalation. There were so many mind-blowing and beautiful stories in there. I especially loved The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling; Exhalation; Omphalos; and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom. If it weren't for the longest story also being the weakest, I would say it's even stronger than Stories of Your Life.

 

 

[Starkess]

I started and finished The 5th Wave yesterday. It was a quick and fun read, simple but engaging. There are some obvious YA and apocalyptic tropes, but I thought they were used effectively. I checked out book 2, The Infinite Sea, and am looking forward to continuing.

Finale continues to suck in a lot of ways. I did discover that this book splits POVs between Donatella and Scarlet, and Scarlet's sections are just so much easier to tolerate. Donatella really is just such an awful character. I've also realized that I think I find the purple prose much more frustrating here and in book 2 because I'm listening to audiobooks, whereas I read book 1 as an ebook. The narrator is...not my favorite. It's like overdramatic. Is purple narration a thing? Purple narration on purple prose makes it so much harder to ignore.

[williamjm]

7 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I loved Exhalation. There were so many mind-blowing and beautiful stories in there. I especially loved The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling; Exhalation; Omphalos; and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom. If it weren't for the longest story also being the weakest, I would say it's even stronger than Stories of Your Life.

I think The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate might have been my favourite. Was the longest one the one with the virtual pets? I thought that was OK, but perhaps the idea wasn't quite as compelling as some of the other stories.

[Caligula_K3]

4 hours ago, williamjm said:

I think The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate might have been my favourite. Was the longest one the one with the virtual pets? I thought that was OK, but perhaps the idea wasn't quite as compelling as some of the other stories.

Oh yes, I loved that story too! For some reason I had thought that one was in Stories of Your Life.

Yeah, I was referring to the virtual pets one. Like you, I didn't find the idea that compelling, it was pretty predictable and overlong, and I thought it didn't play to Chiang's strengths as a writer.

[Plessiez]

It's been a long time since I first read Stories of Your Life and Others; I knew Chiang had published some well-received short stories after that, but I didn't know that he had a new collection out.  (I think I'd actually more or less assumed he'd stopped writing full time at some point.)

Are there any other currently-active SF authors who only write short fiction?  It feels like a bit of an anamoly, to me, but I suspect that might just reflect the fact I don't read enough short stories in general.

--

I finished The Kingdom of Copper and really liked it -- I thougbt it matched or improved on everything that made the first book work, and the pacing was a lot better.  (And, in contrast to the J. V. Jones book I read last month, did a much better job of actually having the various POV characters interact with one another.)   Probably going to jump straight to The Empire of Gold next.

[williamjm]

26 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

It's been a long time since I first read Stories of Your Life and Others; I knew Chiang had published some well-received short stories after that, but I didn't know that he had a new collection out.  (I think I'd actually more or less assumed he'd stopped writing full time at some point.)

It came out about a year ago. I think some of the stories were newly published along with collecting some from the past few years. He doesn't seem particularly prolific in terms of writing pace.